rawTOP

Count me in for one of the older tops...

So PORTaURINAL - how many loads of piss did you get? I know you've been thinking of taking loads of cum too - get any of those (up your ass)?

You get the warning once per browser session. So the solution is to keep your browser open. At least with Firefox, it can be open with other web pages in other tabs. But if you completely close your browser, the next time you view Breeding Zone you'll get the popup on the first page you view.

PLEASE don't use dildos... I hate bottoms who use dildos a lot - you can tell it when you fuck them - it just doesn't feel as good - and visually their asses look abused and tired. Which would you rather have - a dildo or a real dick? I'd suggest trying butt plugs. IMHO, they're something more bottoms should use. I wish a bottom would show up at my place with a butt plug in him. If you've been wearing a butt plug for a couple hours, when you pull it out your hole won't completely close up for quite a while. An open hole is sorta hot... Because it clenched around the butt plug it will be tight, but not as tight as if you didn't have it in. The slight be more looseness might be enough to get you over your problem. Back when I was in college and versatile I used to like butt plugs. I'd put them in and go to class. It was sorta hot walking around with something big and substantial up your butt. You knew, but no one else did... Do be careful the butt plus is completely smooth - I had one that had a defect - sort of a slightly sharp bump. I sometimes wonder if that's how I got a tear down there (which is a big part of what turned me into a top).

US law isn't based on Common Law - informed by it, but our system is generally different. In the US people aren't accountable for what they do when they're under "extreme emotional distress" (like when they're in the middle of getting beaten). No one here wants to be assaulted, so we give a pass to people who are defending themselves - even if they go a bit too far.

lol - Though it would be funny if he had fathered lots of kids in the process. Can you imagine 50 or 100 kids from one guy?

All done

I'll take my "feeble-minded analogies" over purposely deceitful "research" any day.

Because, as you know, I have other things that keep me busy. I care, but not that much...

IMHO, it's not helpful to quote or discuss deeply flawed studies where you can't really tell the truth of the matter. It just confuses people and muddies the discussion when you don't see a clear picture.

Sorry, but that study has serious problems. The biggest one is that they didn't spell out the characteristics of the people who died. I've seen other studies that say that when you look at just the people who actually die of AIDS you see that the vast majority of them 1) didn't start ARVs until their CD4 dropped below 200 and/or 2) had drug abuse or other issues that meant that they didn't take their meds consistently once they did start treatment. The first part of the study where "early" is defined as CD4 between 350 and 500 - we're in agreement there - that seems like a reasonable time to start to me. It's the second part of the study where I see problems. They should have sorted the participants into 3 groups, not 2. By mixing the people with really low CD4s with people with reasonable CD4s they're giving a distorted picture. Notice that they don't give mean CD4 counts for each group - they only give median and inter quartile ranges. That means you can't tell how dire the lowest quartile is - that could be where a large part of the deaths are. The other thing which is a huge red flag is the 95% confidence intervals - with up to 9,000 people in the study they should have been a lot smaller. Something fishy is going on there. That indicates to me that they're using the unusually large sample size to help them tell a story that isn't really there. On top of that - they only know the cause of death for 16% of those who died. It could be random bad luck that's causing the deaths. If, as other studies have shown, poverty and drug addiction keep people off ARVs - then it could just be that poor people are more likely to die. I mean, they do some analysis of how other factors like Hep C and IV drug use factor in - but unless they can tie the deaths back to HIV in some way, it really weakens the results. As they mention, this was not a randomized trial - there could be a variety of cofactors that determined when the person chose to start ARV treatment. This isn't tinfoil hat... Very particular details are missing from the study. It baffles me how they could not discuss the characteristics of the people who died. That's the outcome variable. Comparing people who dies to people who didn't die is far more important than looking at the differences between two arbitrarily defined groups. I've heard it said that numbers don't lie, people lie with numbers. The results of that study are crafted in a very particular way to give the message that the drug companies want told. First, they wanted to get people on ARVs when they were in the 350-500 CD4 range - no problem there. But then they went further - to try to get people on drugs years before they may actually need them. I'll end by listing the drug company affiliations of the researchers - they speak volumes... "Consulting & Lecture Fees" are given to people who market drugs to other doctors. I know, I've helped recruit and pay the doctors. Bottom line - this is a drug company study passed off as legitimate research and you accepted it as fact. This is exactly what I've been ranting about in this thread.

[This story is a complete fantasy. Who knows maybe I'll have a slave like this - he'd sorta be my ideal slave…] Jamal started life with things stacked against him. His mom was a prostitute who usually had johns fucking her several times a day. She always took her birth control but with all that cum in her pussy some of it managed to get past the birth control and she got pregnant with Jamal. Being pregnant was the last thing she wanted. Some guys liked fucking pregnant women, but most didn't and it meant she'd earn nothing for a couple weeks around the birth. Jamal was unwanted from day one… Jamal's mom had been pretty once, but after living in poverty getting fucked by thousands of guys, her beauty was "faded" (to put it nicely). She should have lived a better life but somehow things always went bad for her. It didn't help that everyone in her building knew she was a whore. A couple of them would routinely break into her apartment, rob her and force her to give them a free fuck. She tried to hide her money but half the time they'd find where she had hidden the money. She just couldn't get ahead and Jamal was just the latest of a heap of problems that she called her life. Needless to say, as the bastard child of a poor prostitute Jamal was pretty much the textbook definition of "disadvantaged". He was a cute kid - he had gotten his Mom's good looks. His mom was mulatto (black mother, white father) and based on how Jamal looked it seems like his daddy had been Latino of some sort. He was this wonderful light brown color - like the perfect suntan 360 days a year. His hair was coarse, but not kinky… All in all he was a hot little blatino boy, but looks don't count for much when everyone knows your mom gets fucked for a living. He was constantly getting beaten up by his peers, and because he was a little kid there was no way he could fight back. The few times he tried he lost pretty badly. The funny part was he knew some of their fathers fucked his mom - he could be the brother of the guys who were beating him up - but he never said that to their face - it would only make the guys beat him harder. There was a hierarchy to Jamal's world - he was on the bottom and everyone else was above him - it's just how things were and he accepted it. It wasn't just the kids in the neighborhood who'd beat Jamal. His mother had the bad habit of reminding Jamal that she wished he'd never been born. Whenever he did something to displease her she's smack him. If he tried to stop her, it would set her off even more. There were times when she'd just snap and start wailing on him - it was like she tried to soothe the frustrations of her miserable life by using him as a punching bag. There were teachers and counselors at school that were supposed to figure out what was going on but most of them didn't care. Plus his mom told him if he ever reported her his life would get a lot worse - not better. So he just put up with it an hid the bruises as best he could from people like teachers. Abuse was part of his life and as far as he could tell it would always be that way. The question of who his father was was one that always haunted Jamal. He used to fantasize about who his father was. His dream was that he could figure out who his father was, and even though he was his bastard son and would never be the equal of his legitimate siblings, he would at least know where he belonged. It was the feeling that he had no home, no safe place, that really hit him the hardest, and he knew even if he found his father that wouldn't necessarily be his home either - but at least he'd have something concrete to fantasize about. Jamal learned early on that he couldn't stop the abuse but if he kept his head down and did things like avoid eye contact, it helped a lot. When he had to interact with someone it was best if he just tried to give them what they wanted or make them happy in some way. Submissiveness was his survival strategy. Even when someone would start beating him - it was better if he didn't resist - if he just took it without complaint. Jamal was a broken and damaged kid. The only part of his life that seemed to go well was school. It was a crappy school where the teachers didn't really care, but Jamal came to realize that he was actually pretty smart. That, and his willingness to please, earned him good grades. He was pretty much a straight A student - not that that made much of a difference in his rough and tumble world. It just meant some of the kids would force him do to papers and then beat him up if the paper he wrote didn't get an A. To make matters worse his mom just kept telling him he was worthless - that brains didn't matter - that he'd get nowhere 'cause he wasn't much of a man - he was so small and submissive he'd never amount to much of anything. So even the one thing where he could have gotten some self-worth was taken away from him… When Jamal was 8 some of his mom's clients expressed an interest in him. His mom thought it was disgusting, but she also saw dollar signs. As much as she despised "faggots", to her it was free money. Even with her trying to keep it on the down-low (she didn't want to be known as the mother of a faggot), it wasn't long before Jamal was out-earning her, but it only made Jamal less of a man in her eyes. He was her meal ticket and she despised him for how he earned his money. Without going into detail, Jamal was pretty much perfectly suited for his new "profession". He was submissive and willing to put up with just about anything to get by. And his desire to please let the johns think they weren't really abusing him and the men coming back for repeat visits. Of course it wasn't long before the kids found out that Jamal's mom was whoring him out - and that just made things worse with him. He'd come home with new bruises every day. And when his "clients" saw the bruises they treated him worse. It was cyclical - the sex just got rougher and rougher as time went on… The abuse just never seemed to have an end. Jamal stopped seeing his body as _his_ body - it became a shell he lived in that other people used as they saw fit. He felt hollow and yearned for acceptance and love - but he didn't even know what that meant. He just knew it revolved around one word - "daddy" - the one thing he'd never had. Jamal contacted me a few months before his 18th birthday. He found my blog and told me he thought I was the perfect daddy top. He'd send me pictures of himself. I had to delete some of them immediately 'cause he shouldn't be sending pics like that, but he was hot. The best part was that he didn't understand how hot he was - he saw himself as pretty much worthless. He had good grades in school, but his school was so bad there was no way he could compete in college against people who had gone to better schools. And with the exception of his teachers (who largely just took him for granted), everyone around him despised him and told him he was a piece of shit. While 17 is legal in New York, he lived in Philadelphia and I wasn't about to bring a minor across state lines, so we just chatted online. After a month or so he opened up to me and started showing me the bruises, but I couldn't really do anything. He begged me not to report his mother and given that it had been going on for years I figured he could stand a couple more months of it. He didn't even tell me enough about him to do a report. He told me his name was Jamal and he lived in Philadelphia, but that was all I knew. We kept chatting and I could tell I was becoming a bit of a daddy figure to him. It was cute. At the same time it sorta turned me on to hear how he put up with physical and sexual abuse without complaint. It was just his life and he expected it. It was no big deal to him. A couple days before he turned 18 I tried to reach him online but he was wasn't around. The next day - same thing. Being offline so long was usual for him. The morning of his birthday he still wasn't online and I started getting worried. I wondered if the abuse finally went really bad. Then in the middle of the afternoon my doorbell rang, I opened the door and there he was. I didn't remember telling him my address, but somehow managed to find me. It was one of the hottest days in August. He was sorta sunburned and incredibly dirty. But he still looked incredibly hot. It didn't hurt that he had almost nothing on - no shirt, just these thin little running shorts which clung to every curve in his body 'cause he was dripping with sweat and his shorts were soaked. It was also clear he didn't have underwear on - his thin wet shorts were showing every detail of his half-hard dick. I could actually see his dick twitching and growing pretty quickly. In a matter of seconds it got so hard it started tenting his shorts and he was big enough that the head started poking out under the bottom of his shorts. "Can I come in?" He was so submissive - he barely looked up at me - mostly just stared at the ground. "Of course boy…" (I didn't want my neighbors to see a half naked little boy standing at my door with a hardon). As soon as he was inside the door he dropped to the floor and got into a little submissive ball and started kissing my feet. He begged me to let him stay. Said he'd be a good boy and I could whore him out just like his mom had - he'd earn his keep and wouldn't be any trouble. "Please daddy, please… My mom will know I'm gone by now and she'll beat me pretty bad if I go back. I always delete our chat history - they'll never know I'm here. I'll be good, I promise." I'll do anything you want daddy, please daddy, please… Please let me be your boy… I'll be a good boy, I promise…" He was having verbal diarrhea offering everything he could think of to get me to let him stay. I just stood there for a little bit and let him beg. "…If you want to beat me, I can take it… Anything you want daddy… Please…" I didn't really respond to his request. He was filthy dirty and I just wanted to start with getting him clean. "Follow me boy" and I led him up to the bathroom and he followed quietly - he knew the time for talking was over. "Take a bath boy - you're filthy." "I'm sorry sir, I walked here." "You WALKED here?" I said incredulously. "You walked here from Philadephia?" That's like 100 miles. "Yes sir. I went to the park near my house a couple days ago just to get away from my mom for a few hours. Some kids started beating me up. They ripped my shirt sir. I thought about how I'd be 18 in a couple days. I just had enough and wanted to get away. I need a fresh start sir. I just started walking and didn't go back. I didn't have any money on me, so I figured I'd just walk. You're the only person who I thought might take me so I headed toward you. I'm good at remembering details and while a back I had figured out who you were and what your address was. Luckily I remembered the address correctly." No wonder he was dirty - he'd been walking for 3 days to get here. His shirt was gone 'cause it had been torn by the guys who beat him up. He had used it as a rag and to keep sun off him, but had finally discarded it when he got to NYC. And most remarkably he had walked 100 miles in cheap flip flops. His feat were a mess, but as he bathed in the hot tub the layers of dirt came off him. When he was done this cute little boy emerged from the water. He was adorable and there was no way I could say no to him... There was one thing I meant to tell Jamal before now, but had just never gotten around to it. I had converted a couple months earlier. Not exactly sure how it happened, but I had what seemed like the fuck flu and when I went and got the test it came back poz. I hadn't gone on meds yet - I was still waiting to see how my body would respond. Here was an 18 year old begging me to "be my boy" - on his 18th birthday no less. He had no clue what he was asking for, but given his life up to this point I figured he probably wouldn't care. Being pozzed by me was better than his life back in Philadelphia. I didn't say anything about that and I didn't really tell him I planned on granting his wish to stay with me and be my boy. When the water drained out of the tub I got out the the spray nozzle for douching and asked if he knew what it was. "Yes daddy, my mom has me use something like that…" I told him I'd be in the bedroom when he was done. 5 minutes later my naked little boy came to the bedroom and climbed into bed with me (since he hadn't eaten in two days douching didn't take long). He was so small and frail - just 5' 2" and barely over 100 pounds. I could see why fighting back was never an option for him. Even though he hadn't eaten in 3 days, but he wasn't asking for food - he was so submissive he wouldn't even make that simple demand of me - it wasn't his place. I think he thought he needed to earn his meal. He didn't even make much eye contact with me. He just got on his belly, ass up, looked the other way and said "it's yours daddy…" and spread his ass cheeks. Damn that was a fine ass! I grabbed the lube, lubed up my dick, and pushed into his sweet boyish hole - no foreplay, no tenderness - we both knew he was just a fuckhole. My big PA hurt him as it went in, but he put up with it. God that was a sweet hole… Silky smooth and still pretty tight despite all the use it had seen. I came on like the third stroke, but I knew that was just the first of many loads - I'd last longer on the next load. I kept my dick in him and slowly pumped his hole. It was so warm and tight - and now well lubed with my poz cum - it felt incredible. After 20 minutes of slowly pumping his ass in almost complete silence I got my second wind. This time I fucked longer and harder. In fact it was a pretty rough fuck. I pounded him for 15+ minutes and my PA was really tearing him up. I started seeing a little blood on my dick and I knew there was no way he would be neg after this fuck. Finally my second load came. And I collapsed on top him in a wet sweaty mess. As we lay there with two loads of my high viral load poz cum in his ass I asked him if he'd ever been tested for HIV. "No sir - I haven't been tested. I've been fucked a lot, but mostly by straight guys, so I can't really say what my status is." We spent the rest of the day in bed - other than getting out to have a bite to eat (he was ravenous). I pumped two more loads in him that night and one the next morning. I wanted to know what my boy's HIV status was so the next morning I took him down to the free clinic and had him tested. The test came back neg - we were both a little surprised. I guess the guys his mom lined up really were straight - it helps to not get fucked. It sorta turned me on that he had gotten a neg test result while there were 5 loads of highly charged cum percolating in his guts. When we got home he asked me "Was neg the result you wanted daddy?" I told him neg was perfect. I put him face-down on the living room floor and fucked him again… I could tell the weight of me pounding into him and the hardness of the floor under him hurt him, but he didn't seem to mind the pain. As I was about to cum, I said "You want me to be your daddy forever, right?" "Yes daddy, I've wanted that for a long time - even before I contacted you." "Good boy… Take my poz load boy… I just converted and I'm not on meds - those loads last night and the ones I'm going to keep pumping into you… They're going to make you mine - I'll be with you forever boy…" It was like a curtain opened and everything changed for him. He flipped around, put his legs in the air and shoved my cummy cock back in his hole, and then spontaneously pulled me towards him and kissed me. He had the biggest grin on his face. He had found his daddy… [to be continued...]

You just called the chief of neurosurgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering incompetent... Being German, perhaps you're not aware of MSKCC's significance... It, and Mayo Clinic, are the two top cancer hospitals in the US. It's easily one of the top 5 cancer hospitals in the world. And the guy was the head of neurosurgery at one of those hospitals. He was not incompetent. He just did an unnecessary neurosurgery on me and should have questioned my neurologist more carefully before doing it. But given that my neurologist was the chair or neurology, he didn't question her request for the biopsy. I'd actually like to see the study. The issue with large sample sizes is that everything becomes statistically significant. At that point you have to ask yourself if it's meaningfully significant. If it just makes a small but positive improvement in life expectancy, I personally would prefer to live fewer years with less chance of drug side effects. That's a perfectly reasonable decision for me to make and doctors should spell out the choice clearly for patients. I'm done arguing the other points. I've pretty much covered everything that I can think of saying...

In 1994 I watched as a nurse administered some incredibly powerful medications to my HIV positive boyfriend in the wrong order. I had been told by the doctor the order was important and questioned the nurse, but she insisted she was right and I was wrong. I didn't stop her and when I woke up in the morning my boyfriends heart was racing - it had been racing for hours. The doctor said he had essentially run a marathon in his sleep. That incident was the beginning of the end for him. He never got back to anything close to healthy and died a couple months later. I have to ask myself if I had stood up to the nurse and insisted a doctor confirm the order whether he'd still be alive today. In 2003 my friends said my neurosurgeon (the chief of neurosurgery at MSKCC) looked deeply disturbed when he finished doing my second "brain tumor" biopsy. We're convinced something went wrong and my life was in danger - all for an operation that wasn't really necessary. My brother-in-law is now a ghost of the vibrant, fun-loving person I looked up to as a kid and I suspect his medical issues are due to over aggressive medical treatment. I've worked on the marketing of drugs that caused such serious problems that they're now banned by the FDA. I saw first hand how pharma companies identified, recruited and trained "thought leaders" to get those drugs accepted. I've helped organize the dinner meetings and ski resort vacations to influence those thought leaders. And I've seen in my own experience how reluctant doctors are to question those thought leaders. Exactly how many people do I need to see put at risk and hurt before I say "enough" and have the right to question doctors? I don't have to be a scientist to use common sense and demand that medical authority figures genuinely do what's best for me and the people I love. A one-size-fits-all approach is becoming the dominant treatment plan for HIV and one size doesn't fit all.

You know me... I'm far too much of a hard-nosed New Yorker to believe that medicine is irrelevant. At the same time having a doc tell you to go on meds for 20 to 60 years is a decision that requires close examination and people shouldn't be criticized for saying "I'll wait". Honestly, I'm not poz and if I became poz I'd research things more carefully and make my own decision. Everything I've learned over the last 25 years tells me that going on meds quickly is not something I'd want to do personally. I can't say whether it's 200 or 350. I know I would be more concerned about sustained trends than I would be about a temporary spike/drop. I'd want to see repeated tests at the threshold level to go on meds. Honestly though - I've been around the block enough to know where those doctors who say "under 200" are coming from. They come from the same school of thought as the social worker who observed that the less you do, the better the outcome. They've been around long enough to know the dangers of aggressive treatment. I respect that. And I'd bet those same docs aren't dogmatic about what they advise - they lay things out and let the patient figure out what's right for them. To me, that's good medicine. I've seen to many "top doctors" do stupid things - things that hurt, rather than help their patients. I've seen that the average doctor will refuse to contradict the opinion of "top doctors". Finding "the right doctor" is like finding a needle in the haystack - more often than not you don't wind up with the right doctor - you wind up with one that's just "good enough" (even when you think you have a good doctor). I've seen bad doctors over and over and over. Bad doctors are the rule, not the exception. It's one of those "fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me" scenarios. I now think for myself and on major stuff I stop and consider their recommendation and see if it's right for me. Your tin foil hat mom is actually close to the truth. Vaccines are one of the leading theories for the dramatic rise of autism. However sensible folk aren't against vaccines all together - instead they want to tweak the timing of vaccines. Some vaccines can be given a little later, when the child's body is a bit more mature and that delay means there's far less side effects. Case and point - I went to military doctors my entire life. When I was a teen it came out that a certain vaccine could be dangerous if given to children too early. My mom looked at my vaccine record and saw that military doctors knew (or suspected) the danger 10+ years before the general public and had delayed giving me that particular vaccine. That's not tin foil hat - it's prudent medicine. Of course.

Getting second opinions from people at the same institution is generally a bad idea. For second and third opinions it's best to go to a doctor who is completely unconnected to the original doctor. I've seen it in action - if they know and respect the other doctor they won't contradict the diagnosis - even when it's wrong.

Ah... You should have heard the discussion of hormones in animal feed that my sisters had... One is a scientist with a Ph.D. in animal nutrition. The other had a daughter go into puberty at the age of 9 because the artificial hormones in the meat she was serving her kids. When she cut out things like Purdue chicken her daughter went back to normal for a girl of her age. Or ask yourself where the epidemic of autism is coming from... I'd almost put money on it being caused by something that scientists say isn't known to be harmful. At the same time I completely respect science. But science has practical limits and sometimes it takes a while for scientists to see the full picture.

Personally, yes, I'd wait. The issue is that the study can't be conclusive 'cause it can't tell me what the drug side effects will be in 30, 40 or 50 years - it will always inherently be an incomplete study. So if they give me a range - I'll pick the edge of the range that keeps me off drugs the longest. And yes, I'll continue to point out what's missing from the studies. What they're not saying. What they can't promise you. And what the backroom, big-money antics might be that are influencing the recommendations. That's not tin foil hat - that's just observation. One of the principles of science is that you understand the assumptions that go into your conclusions - that's really all I'm doing. I didn't even go into my brother-in-law's case... He was diagnosed bipolar a while after my sister married him and they put him on some powerful drugs that never quite worked properly. Then at one point he and my sister sat me down to tell me he was "bisexual". To me that sorta explained his bipolar issues - he wasn't at peace with who he was and the internal turmoil was causing him big problems psychologically. Rather than dealing with the underlying issue (his homosexuality) they gave it the fashionable diagnosis of the day and tried to medicate the problem away. Then, after years of powerful drugs he got diagnosed with Parkinson's. Conveniently Parkinson's is one of those illnesses that you can't prove with a lab test. Personally I think what they interpreted as Parkinsons were the effects of the meds he had been taking for years. Then they started giving him more meds to deal with the side effects of his Parkinson's meds. He takes something like 30 pills a day now and is a complete basket case. Honestly I think he'd be living a healthy happy productive life if he had just come out all those years ago and lived his life as an openly gay man. It's really pretty sad. I know that's all speculation - but try and prove me wrong. I keep seeing bad things happen (medically) to people who aren't at peace with who they are. It's not pharma related but one of my bf's best friends died of breast cancer after being in a rather hostile corporate environment. On so many levels your inner chi is incredibly important. People who are at peace with themselves tend to die of rather ordinary and boring things... Moderation and inner peace... I'll take that over aggressive medication any day... And if I die a little early - so be it - I had a good life.

Let's see... One of the top neurologists in the world (the chair of neurology at MSKCC) insisted I had a brain tumor when it was a scar. Even _after_ two biopsies both said it was just scar tissue. She literally discounted the results of 2 biopsies that were done by one of the top neurosurgeons in the world (the chief of neurosurgery at MSKCC). The second biopsy was incredibly aggressive - you can still feel the hole in my head from it nearly a decade later. After all that, I've earned the right to be skeptical of doctors (not to mention seeing a lover die in part because of overly-aggressive treatment). I even asked her whether the "growth" she was seeing was due to MRI technology showing more and more detail over the years. She was wrong, the radiologist and public university-educated neurologist were right. My hunch about MRI technology improvements looking like growth were right as well. God gave me a brain - I intend to use it and not just accept what I'm told. You should never do something serious health-related without getting a second and possibly third opinion. Doctors are often wrong and in an era of drug reps giving free meals and vacations to doctors that prescribe and malpractice insurance companies telling doctors they won't get sued for doing too much - only for doing too little - you really do need to question your doctor's advice - especially on the big stuff like "take these pills for the next 50 years".

look at what i've said... it's hardly tin foil hat wearing sorta stuff... i say people should go on meds when they need them. you're 200/350/500+ question is exactly where the debate should be. thing is, meds from day 1 no matter what your t-cell count is, seems to be where policy is going. that scares the shit out of me. and now with PrEP they're trying to give meds to people who aren't even poz. what happened to "first, do no harm"? i mean PrEP completely violates that principle. these aren't asprin they're telling guys to take (hell, even asprin can be dangerous)... to answer your question if it were me, i'd take meds starting when my t-cell count consistently dropped below 500, but before it consistently got down to 350. but that would be after i saw how things stabilized - from what i've heard things bounce around a bit the first 6 to 12 months. and when i would go on meds i'd take as few meds as possible, and go for the mildest ones that work on whatever strain i had. i wouldn't shoot for absolute zero viral load - i'd be happy enough with "détente" - just enough meds so my t-cells stay good and things are generally in balance. if i'm a bit above detectable that would be fine with me (though i'd do more research to make sure that's not a bad choice). overly aggressive medicine isn't something that's theoretical for me. for 22 years i was told i had a brain tumor and doctors had me on meds to stop seizures that were supposedly caused by the tumor. the meds fucked with my gums pretty badly - still have problems in that respect. the doctors did very dangerous biopsies to figure out the type of tumor but refused to believe the results of the biopsies - that it was just scar tissue. i don't have a brain tumor - never did. and i don't have seizures - never did. i have a scar that was caused when i fell and hit my head on concrete steps when i was a kid in summer camp. and i have vasovagal reactions to things - pretty simple blackouts. it was all quite clear when you look at the records but i was essentially lied to by doctors for years and years - and they were some of the top doctors in their field - some of them were quite senior at memorial sloan kettering. i knew the MSKCC doctors were full of shit - i knew my body. but it took me years before i could find doctors who were willing to go against the MSKCC diagnosis. it goes further... when my lover died of aids in '95 his social worker said "you know, his doctor is really well respected and he's at all the conferences giving papers, etc. but a lot of his patients die whereas the doctors who are less well known and aren't as aggressive in their treatments - their patients tend to live". those experiences, and what i've seen of the pharmaceutical marketing business scares the shit out of me when i see doctors treat aggressively. there are certain forms of cancer where aggressive treatment is called for - but beyond that the less weird shit you put in your body, the better... [i'm not big on recreational drug use either...] the other thing is that i had to deal with my own mortality pretty young. they told me i had a brain tumor when i was 18. the next few years were an emotional roller coaster but as the years went on i became less afraid of death. in that whole process i learned to focus on the quality of life rather than the quantity of life. it's not about how long i live. it's about accomplishing something and enjoying the journey - no matter how long or short that journey is. treating people aggressively is usually focused on the quantity of life, not the quality of life - it's the wrong objective. and as wrong objectives often do, i predict it will backfire and the people who treated their hiv aggressively will live shorter lives as the drug side effects start damaging their bodies. i came to peace with "my brain tumor" and when i see poz guys, the ones i respect the most are the ones who've come to peace with their hiv. hiv doesn't define them, they're not consumed with it, and they're not trying to eradicate every trace of it from their bodies. they may even embrace it. their lives are about other things - they just go on living, they don't ignore their medical needs, but they're ok with a moderate approach to things. what i'm advocating isn't hardly in the category of tin foil hat - it's about finding a middle road - everything in moderation... but you have to be at peace with things to be ok with that sort of approach. i understand how some people just aren't in that mindset. i saw it in my boyfriend that died. being poz destroyed him emotionally to the point where he'd take toxic doses of herbal remedies. i had to lock all of the pills he bought at the health food store away in a cabinet - they were hurting him. he never did come to peace with being poz and i think it was a big reason why he didn't survive. he wanted the aggressive treatment - but that aggressive treatment killed him. if he could have just been at peace with things and taken things more slowly and calmly he might still be alive - it was only a year later when ARVs came onto the scene... but slowly and calmly just seems wrong when you're in the middle of what you think is a crisis - often it's only later that you understand it was the right approach.

@GermanFucker & Tony... You're both ignoring the effect of the pharma industry on the research and discounting the long-term side effects 20, 40+ years from now. I mean doctors put people on meds before they even know whether the person is genetically able to suppress HIV. What pharma affiliations do the researchers of those studies have? Do you know? It makes a huge difference. Seriously... Tony I know you shoot for super undetectable. For you that's an informed choice (and ironically from what you told me I'm the one that got you interested in being super undetectable), but it's one thing to make a decision like that for yourself. It's another one for it to become general medical policy (for the reasons I've stated above).

Related to the cost of meds - remember that at some point the drug companies will lose their patent on the current ARVs. I'm sure they'll come out with new and better ones, but at that point a generation all the current ones (which seem to be pretty decent) will become FAR less expensive. I'm sure doctors will start prescribing the cheap ones to people with minimal or no insurance and the new expensive ones will just be for the people with good health insurance. So at some point being poz will be far less costly than it is currently.

Here are pics of Antonio topping... And a close up of his monster thick dick marking it's territory...

Hey boy... I'll be there in late March.

I'm not going to be able to go this year and I have a (larger) corner King-size room booked. Does anyone want to take over the reservation?